- Ecuador: Prosecutor killed in latest attack on regime officials
Source: United Press International
“Ecuador’s Attorney General’s Office said a new attack targeting justice officials left a prosecutor dead in the port city of Manta. Veteran criminal prosecutor Alexandra Bravo and her sister, Olinda Bravo, were shot and killed in broad daylight Sunday, raising renewed concerns about the security risks faced by judges and prosecutors in a country operating under a state-declared ‘internal armed conflict’ against powerful drug trafficking organizations. Authorities said the attack occurred as the sisters were leaving a restaurant and walking toward their parked vehicle. A gunman approached them and fired multiple shots at close range. Both women died at the scene, while the attacker escaped.” (06/15/26)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2026/06/15/latam-ecuador-prosecutor-lkilled/5591781540127/
- SCOTUS declines former Trump aide’s lawsuit over surveillance
Source: CBS News
“The Supreme Court on Monday turned away ex-Trump campaign aide Carter Page’s attempt to revive a lawsuit against former FBI Director James Comey and other senior FBI officials over surveillance warrants obtained by the bureau during its investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The Supreme Court’s denial of the case came after the Trump administration said in April it had reached a $1.25 million settlement with Page. He had appealed a lower court decision dismissing his lawsuit against the Justice Department, FBI and eight named individuals, including Comey. The Justice Department’s settlement involved only Page’s claims against the U.S. government, not the individual FBI officials.” (06/15/26)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/supreme-court-trump-campaign-aide-carter-page-jim-comey/
- Hungary: Parliament votes for eight-year term limit for prime minister
Source: Politico
“Hungarian lawmakers on Monday passed a constitutional amendment that would ban Viktor Orbán from returning to power. The amendment, approved by 135 votes in favor and 50 against, would limit prime ministers to just eight years in office if it becomes law. The amendment is written to apply retroactively, meaning that Viktor Orbán could not return as Hungary’s prime minister. Orbán served as prime minister for a total of 20 years. … The amendment will now head to the desk of Tamás Sulyok, the Fidesz-appointed president of Hungary. Magyar is currently trying to oust Sulyok and other Orbán-appointed officials as he cleans house in the new government. Sulyok has refused Magyar’s request to resign voluntarily. Should Sulyok return the legislation to lawmakers, they could overrule his concerns in a second vote.” (06/15/26)
- SCOTUS turns away challenge to New York gun company shakedown law
Source: NBC News
“The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a challenge to a New York law that sets out a legal pathway to hold gunmakers accountable for harm caused by their weapons [sic]. The court’s decision not to intervene means the 2021 law remains in effect. It allows for various legal claims against gun manufacturers under state law, including alleged conduct that endangers the public health [sic] of New Yorkers. The law, which was immediately challenged in court after being enacted, was written specifically to circumvent a 2005 federal law called the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act that created a liability shield for gunmakers. It could still face future legal challenges.” (06/15/26)
- BBC investigation: Russian regime was behind arson attacks targeting Starmer
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“Even after he set fire to Sir Keir Starmer’s house, Roman Lavrynovych – convicted on Monday of conspiring to commit arson – seemed to know as much about the prime minister as a bullet knows about its target. His anonymous handler, known by the initials EL, gave a clue in a message: ‘Look, you attacked the home of a very high-ranking person in Britain. I’ll send you money, you need to leave the city.’ It was too late: Lavrynovych was arrested within hours. … Our investigation has found the arson attack was just one part of an extensive campaign of sabotage, provocation and lies leading all the way to the Russian state. … Russian operatives ran their sabotage and provocation campaign remotely through social media and the messaging app Telegram, we found, creating fake online far-right and Muslim groups, which were used to organise acts of vandalism in the UK and stir up division and fear.” (06/15/26)
- Major attack on Arch Linux: Massive malware injection into the AUR
Source: Research Snipers
“Arch Linux continues to struggle with a large-scale malware wave in its user repository AUR (Arch User Repository). This is currently literally flooded with malware. The attack continues and becomes more sophisticated. After the developers behind the Linux distribution initially assumed that they had brought the security incident under control with more than 1,500 affected packages in which malicious code was integrated, further manipulated code submissions have now been discovered. … The incident once again raises questions about the security of the AUR. Unlike the official Arch Linux package sources, the repository is maintained by users who can provide their own software packages there. Given the repeated findings, some observers are calling for additional protective measures or even a temporary shutdown of the service until more effective security controls can be put in place.” (06/15/26)
https://researchsnipers.com/major-attack-on-arch-linux-massive-malware-injection-into-the-aur/
- NJ: Gang member opens fire at fleeing victim’s van
Source: New York Post
“An ICE agent in New Jersey was struck by a van driven by a fleeing suspect and opened fire on the vehicle, striking it several times, authorities said. The incident happened Monday morning around 9:30 a.m. in Stafford Township, about 60 miles east of Philadelphia as the agency was trying to capture a suspect. The officer’s condition was not immediately known, but sources told NBC Philadelphia that he is expected to recover.” [editor’s note: Perhaps after recovering, he or she will give up the thug life and get an honest job – TLK] (06/15/26)
https://nypost.com/2026/06/15/us-news/ice-agent-in-nj-hit-by-fleeing-suspect-in-van-opens-fire/
- Trump’s Iran Deal Is a Humiliation for Him — and Good News for the World
Source: The Nation
by Jeet Heer“The attack on Iran that Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched in February has disrupted the global economy, sending oil prices spiking, while utterly failing in its stated objective of regime change. Voters widely, and accurately, view the war as an unmitigated disaster. … Trump launched a foolish and unnecessary war, which the United States has lost decisively. The war proves the US and Israel have limited ability to restrain Iran. So the only alternative is negotiation.” (06/15/26)
- A Requiem for Privacy
Source: Antiwar.com
by Andrew P Napolitano“Before 9/11, no one in law enforcement was permitted access to data obtained outside the restraints imposed by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. Those restraints prohibit searches and seizures — in the modern parlance, surveillance and data acquisition — without a search warrant issued by a judge based on probable cause of crime, sworn to under oath. And the warrant itself must specifically describe the places to be searched and the persons or things to be seized. Since 9/11, the wall between surveillance and law enforcement has collapsed even though the feds still maintain that the Fourth Amendment only regulates law enforcement and not surveillance. This wild proposition is defied by the plain language of the amendment, which protects all persons from all government, and by the history of the colonists dealing with British government agents executing general warrants issued by a secret court in London.” (06/15/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/andrew-p-napolitano/2026/06/14/a-requiem-for-privacy
- Tobacco policy should reflect the world as it is
Source: Bluegrass Institute
by Caleb O Brown & Jeffrey A Singer“If reports are correct that Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary resigned under pressure from the White House to approve flavored nicotine vaping products, the episode says a great deal about the state of American tobacco policy. Cigarettes remain legal, ubiquitous, and extraordinarily deadly. Yet smoke-free alternatives that may help adults move away from combustible tobacco continue to trigger political panic out of proportion to the actual public health trade-offs involved. There is something deeply unserious about how Washington talks about nicotine. Cigarettes, the most dangerous products in the category, remain widely available. Smoke-free alternatives, however, are often treated as if their very existence is beyond the pale.” (06/15/26)
- When Money Has an Off Switch, So Does Your Freedom
Source: Cato Institute
by Norbert J Michel“True liberty cannot exist without economic and financial autonomy. Every individual, regardless of their background, must have the right to protect their wealth. They must have the right to access open markets by transacting freely, without the shadow of state corporatism or financial surveillance. Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) are a direct threat to these rights. They are money that can be programmed by the government. They can be turned off completely or just for spending on items the state disapproves of. They are a surveillance-punishment system dressed in the language of financial innovation.” (06/15/26)
https://www.cato.org/blog/when-money-has-switch-so-does-freedom
- Congress’s Failure is Liberty’s Gain
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
by Ron Paul“The only way to protect the American people’s liberty is to dismantle the surveillance state and stop trading real liberty for phantom security. True security comes from replacing militarism and authoritarianism with liberty and peace.” (06/15/26)
http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/congresss-failure-is-libertys-gain
- The Art of the Non-Deal
Source: Persuasion
by Francis Fukuyama“So Donald Trump, on his 80th birthday, announced a deal in which there would be a 60-day ceasefire. Precise details have not yet been officially published. But, according to reports, they apparently include a cessation of attacks in Lebanon, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz … and lifting the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports. He touted this as a key win, in the process praising China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin for helping secure it. This ‘deal’ was nothing of the sort. If the reports are accurate, it instead represented a total U.S. capitulation to Iran. It basically set the clock back to February, when the Strait was open and the United States and Israel had not yet started bombing the Islamic Republic. It merely solved a problem that Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had themselves created by launching the war in the first place.” (06/15/25)
- Trump is stealing Americans’ faith in elections
Source: Seattle Times
by Jackie Calmes“Trump’s Big Lie about rigged elections and Democrats’ supposed cheating — California being his latest target — is by now so familiar that many of us are all but inured to it, and have been for a long time. That’s understandable, and arguably good for our mental health, but collectively dangerous for the nation. The majority of Republican voters accept the lie as truth. What better time than the summer of the nation’s 250th anniversary of independence to reflect on how Trump’s years of lying have corroded the citizenry’s essential belief in the integrity of elections? Attention must be paid, especially ahead of midterm elections in November.” (06/15/26)
- Taxing Away Success
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Mark Moses“We are witnessing a troubling migration — a flight of capital and talent from states that have adopted increasingly aggressive tax policies. Elon Musk moved Tesla and X from California to Texas; Palantir relocated to Colorado. High-profile individuals and corporations are pulling up stakes and relocating to states with more favorable tax policies. A casual observer might interpret such migrations as a strategic response to changing cost structures. But that framing misses the deeper issue. These departures are not just about lowering costs; they reflect an effort to exit a system that has decidedly turned against them.” (06/15/26)
- The World’s First Trillionaire Is Not Your Friend
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone“It’s so pathetic watching Elon Musk’s groveling bootlickers fall all over themselves on social media to defend their favorite oligarch from criticism as he becomes the world’s first trillionaire. They’re like ‘Don’t be mean to the trillionaire, just become a trillionaire yourself! All you need is luck, connections, wealthy parents, the ruthlessness to step on anyone who gets in your way, and a willingness to cooperate with murderous imperial institutions like the Pentagon and the CIA!’ Elon Musk is a military-industrial complex plutocrat who is balls deep in the US intelligence cartel and recently facilitated the US-Israeli attempted regime change operation in Iran. You have infinitely more in common with the average person in Iran, Cuba, Lebanon or Palestine than you have with the world’s first trillionaire.” (06/14/26)
- What the Trillionaire Can’t Do
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob“Mr. Musk’s wealth is in the company that just took on new investors, driving up his shares. If he started selling his shares, the value of the stock would plummet before he found enough buyers. It is Mr. Musk’s managerial genius and technological vision that is responsible for the company’s success, so any step back from control — even by relinquishing stock — would almost certainly spell disaster. And if he vanished off the face of the Earth, our global civilization would feel it. What Elon Musk’s envious haters do not seem to understand is that Musk succeeds by developing products that people, businesses, and governments are willing to pay big bucks for.” (06/15/26)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/06/15/what-the-trillionaire-cant-do/
- Tulsi Gabbard Makes a Grand Exit
Source: Town Hall
by Jeff Crouere“The Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Tulsi Gabbard, will be officially leaving her post on June 19. She is resigning to care for her husband, who is battling a rare form of bone cancer. Gabbard has enjoyed a remarkably successful tenure as DNI and is using her final days in office to unleash several bombshell reports. On Friday, Gabbard rescinded two intelligence assessments from the administration of President Joe Biden regarding the mysterious set of ailments known as ‘Havana Syndrome,’ which has sickened our spies and diplomats on missions throughout the world. … the Biden administration downplayed the reports and dismissed the possibility that the ailments were caused by a foreign adversary. Gabbard blasted these findings for excluding key information, suppressing ‘alternative analysis,’ and using an ‘ethically flawed medical study.'” (06/15/26)
https://townhall.com/columnists/jeffcrouere/2026/06/15/tulsi-gabbard-makes-a-grand-exit-n2677752
- Congress Should Be in No Rush To Renew FISA’s Section 702 Surveillance Powers
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille“It’s long past time to open federal surveillance powers to scrutiny and reform.” (06/15/26)
- Embrace the US-Iran MOU, But Understand It’s Only a First Step
Source: Informed Comment
by Juan Cole“Early Monday morning Islamabad time, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced that ‘Following intensive talks, we are pleased to announce that the Peace Deal between the United States of America and Islamic Republic of Iran has been REACHED. Both sides have declared the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon. The official signing ceremony will be on Friday, 19 June in Switzerland.’ Pakistan and Qatar had been the lead negotiators, though Qatar’s negotiating team appears to have sealed the deal Sunday with a marathon 14-hour session. The White House concurred. US President Donald Trump posted that the deal with Iran is ‘complete’ and that he would immediately lift the US blockade on the Strait of Hormuz and is announcing its ‘toll-free’ opening. ‘Let the oil flow’, he said.” (06/15/26)
https://www.juancole.com/2026/06/iran-agreement-talking.html
- The Kratom Civil War Is Heating Up, and MAHA Has Picked a Side
Source: Wired
by Mattha Busby“A decade ago, kratom advocates fought a surprisingly successful campaign against a proposed Drug Enforcement Administration ban that claimed the obscure Southeast Asian plant posed ‘an imminent hazard to public safety.’ They won bipartisan allies from Bernie Sanders to Rand Paul, and helped create a billion-dollar industry out of kratom, which has pain-relieving effects they said could help fight the opioid epidemic as a far safer, natural alternative to pills. Now, many of those same pro-kratom activists are calling for a ban on products containing concentrates of one of kratom’s active components: 7-hydroxymitragynine, or 7-OH, an ultra-potent extract with opioid-like effects. And it’s causing major friction amongst consumers, sellers, and advocates of both substances.” (06/15/26)
- The Limits of Democracy
Source: Law & Liberty
by James Huffman“More democracy will not solve America’s political woes. We must revitalize the counter-majoritarian elements of the Constitution.” (06/15/26)
- Sabotaging the Invisible Hand: Adam Smith Predicted Modern Policy Failures
Source: The Daily Economy
by Paul Mueller“Smith observed that significant economic inequalities arise not from voluntary exchange but from distortions that restrict competition, channel resources toward favored interests, and limit economic mobility.” (06/15/26)
- SpaceX Monetizes the Future
Source: Gideon’s Substack
by Noah Millman“Buying SpaceX shares was never something I was likely to do. I understand the perspectives of the enthusiastic, the skeptical and the outraged, but I recognize that my inclination toward the skeptical camp is substantially personality-driven. I’m just congenitally skeptical. But I think one thing all three camps may not be acknowledging as fully as they should is the degree to which pricing a company like SpaceX is genuinely extremely difficult because to such a considerable degree what drives its value is a portfolio of real business options, which are inherently difficult to value. That doesn’t usually matter because real business options are usually only marginal factors in valuing a large company like SpaceX. But we’ve entered a world where there are real business options of plausibly extraordinary value, and that world is just genuinely very weird.” (06/15/26)
- Elon Musk vs. the Democrats: Outcomes vs. Process
Source: American Greatness
by Stephen Soukup“Years ago, when my oldest son was a Boy Scout, he was asked to write a report/make a presentation on a modern American ‘hero.’ He chose Elon Musk, and I, of course, rolled my eyes so hard they nearly popped out of my head. I knew Musk was a successful businessman, but I also knew that he was both an advocate for and a seasoned manipulator of Big Government. Tesla, for example, received a $465 million Department of Energy loan in 2010 under the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program, a Big Government scheme to encourage private companies to advance Big Government priorities (namely, fighting Climate Change by reducing carbon emissions). Likewise, Tesla was, at least at the time, commercially viable only because of the more than $1 billion ($7,500/vehicle) in federal EV tax credits claimed by its buyers.” (06/15/26)
https://amgreatness.com/2026/06/15/elon-musk-vs-the-democrats-outcomes-vs-process/
- Reason Roundtable, 06/15/26
Source: Reason
“Bernie Sanders Is Wrong About Trillionaires.” (06/15/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/06/15/bernie-sanders-is-wrong-about-trillionaires/
- LPALive, episode 75
Source: LP Alliance
“Get a courtside view as the GOP challenges Iowa Libertarian contenders in a desperate attempt to hold on to their House majority in the Hawkeye State!” (06/15/26)
- Ron Paul Liberty Report, 06/15/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“‘Peace Deal’ With Iran And Cage Match At White House: What A Time To Be Alive!” (06/15/26)
- Get Lit with Matt and Brad, 06/15/26
Source: Racket News
“Discourses on Livy, Book II.” (06/15/26)
https://rumble.com/v7bbo0a-live-at-430-pm-get-lit-with-matt-and-brad.html
- Rising, 06/15/26
Source: The Hill
“Trump family profiting from White House UFC fight? Lindsey Granger.” (06/15/26)
- Neon Liberalism, 06/15/26
Source: Liberal Currents
“Governance After Neoliberalism, with Rey Fuenties.” (06/15/26)
https://www.liberalcurrents.com/governance-after-neoliberalism-with-rey-fuenties/
- EconTalk, 06/15/26
Source: EconTalk
“The Case for Sunshine (with Rowan Jacobsen).” (06/15/26)
https://www.econtalk.org/the-case-for-sunshine-with-rowan-jacobsen/
- The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg, 06/15/26
Source: The Dispatch
“Do We Need A Red Caesar? | Interview: Eli Lake.” (06/15/26)
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/remnant/do-we-need-a-red-caesar-interview-eli-lake/